Ummm...no, in my opinion the scientific method is not foundationalist. As I already said, I think Quine's holism (the view that it is entirety of a theory that is tested by experience, not specific claims) is the correct way to view scientific knowledge. So I don't know what distinction you're making here between scientific knowledge, which is foundationalist, and non-scientific knowledge, which isn't.

Quine's holism, as you represent it here, is mistaken in a basic detail. The scientific method has no way of dealing in theories beyond confirming or disconfirming specific measurable implications. There is no interaction beyond that, and a theory's form and content are otherwise invisible. That the scientific method's conclusions rest on unquestionable inputs, namely these referent measurements, suffices to make it a foundationalist form of reasoning. On the other hand, what's happening in the mind of a scientist applying the scientific method as a tool in forming a correct theory can be almost anything, including things not the least related to science.

From The Book of Self-Importance
Chapter 6: verses 11-20

11 God: If you give free will to just anybody, they use it eventually. A creature might even reject my existence given enough pride and arrogance.

12 Satan: What? If you create a creature, and do not even present your presence to them, even they are under a logical obligation to assume you!

13 God: I will do you one better:
I will create a creature, obviously contained within my apparent creative presence, and give them free will, a powerful intellect-- and at no time will I show my face, and swaths of them will not believe in me.
I will do one better than that, and give them my will and my words through special, chosen creatures who will be accompanied by signs, wonders and miracles, and swaths of them will not believe in me.

14 Satan: LOL. NO WAY.

15 God: I will do one better than that, and I will send them my word, completely manifest in their form, and they will kill him!!
He will become the greatest, the most well-known and wisest creature among them, and still-- swaths of them will not believe in Me.

16 Satan: YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME. LOL. ROFL.

17 God: I will do one better than that, and allow them to petition me through prayer, and even place my spirit and power inside of them that seek it, and still...swaths of them will not believe in me.

18 Satan: (On the floor, turning red, gasping for breath because he is laughing with such might)

19 God: I will do one better than that, and write my moral law in their hearts, so that nobody is without excuse.

20 Satan: ROFL ROFL ROFL...
(Wiping tears from eyes)
HOW MUCH YOU WANNA BET?!



Genesis chapter 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...

Name one. Don't forget to explain why it's justified, if not through science.

Also, we don’t "believe" in science. We TRUST in science. And we trust it because it works…over and over and over. (whoops, there goes that repeatability thing again) Besides, stop acting like I need to defend science. I don’t. All I need to do is ask you to present a better method. And I’m pretty sure you can't.

It's no wonder you went back and forth so many times with 3-4 different posters just now. The way you talk about how science cannot be verified by science (putting on par with religion as a "belief") makes it sound as if you feel science is worthless if it's not correct 100% of the time. Doesn't matter if that's not what you really feel, it's the way you make it sound that's causing the confusion.

Wiz, I know this has been said many times before (even in this very thread), but non-Christians do not accept the Bible as a source. If they did, they'd be Christians.

Given the above, can you back up any of your beliefs without using the Bible? If not, it's time to really start questioning your position. I mean, surely there is a non-biblical reason you started believing the Bible in the first place, no?

Valiant effort damaci.

If you follow the posts you'll see that the post I was responding to was asking of my beliefs. Further, the topic and question was of God's attributes and characteristics, as well as creation of mankind in his image and likeness. The question was from the Bible, so I don't see the problem in using it as a source. In fact I'd see a problem in not using it as a source for this topic.

Obviously if the question (or line of questioning) assumes the Christian God, then the Bible should be part of the discussion. But when someone asks about your beliefs, or when the type of God has not yet been established, then the Bible is not a valid source. Granting the Bible as truth assumes the Christian God exists.

I think it was understood that I/we were referring to the God of the Bible.

This makes a number of assumptions about science that I find foreign. For instance, the conclusions of science do not rest on measurements as "unquestionable inputs." Indeed, scientists question the results of measurements all the time. For an example of this, most physicists think that the recent result suggesting that neutrinos were measured traveling faster than the speed of light is a measurement error. This is because if this measurement were in fact accurate it would mean such a radical change in theory that many of the other equally basic assumptions these scientists are making are actually incorrect.

The bolded is also incorrect on my view. We test scientific theories against experience by coming up with predictions for which we can test. A prediction is a claim that follows from the claims made by a scientific theory. When a prediction is empirically confirmed, what we've done is provide a reason to think that all of these claims taken together are correct, i.e. the scientific theory as a whole rather than a specific part of the theory is confirmed by this experiment.

Alternatively, when a prediction is empirically falsified, it is the entire collection of claims that make up the scientific theory taken together that is falsified (because only then do you get the implication that is being tested for). This doesn't mean that all of these claims are falsified. Rather, it means that you haven't shown that any particular one of these claims taken in isolation is false. You have only shown that the conjunction between all of these claims is false.

As for your claim that a scientific theory's "form and content is otherwise invisible," this can only be regarded as correct if you view science in an extremely narrow light. For instance, on this view mathematics is not actually part of science. If you have a more expansive view of what "science" is, then we see that advancements in scientific knowledge are often the result of simplifications of a scientific theory's form and ontology (especially through the development of new mathematical structures).

People like concerto should not be allowed to use science in their lives imo.

The existence of an external world.

It was because I asked YOU why YOU thought something. You then gave a blank stare as the tumble weed rolled by before going to the bible to find out what you should say/think/believe or whatever.

I was asking YOU what you thought, not what you can find in the bible to reaffirm what you believe. Although obliviously you had NOT already thought about it any length before blindly believing.

Everything you believe without using the scientific method. You can figure out what those are and why you think they are justified. The existence of the "planet" Pluto is probably one thing you believe without having confirmed it through the scientific method. You trusted the word of others. Regardless of how justified you consider such trust to be, it isn't science.

A bad attempt at semantic nittery. Our belief in science follows from our trust in it. They are not mutually exclusive.

I wouldn't dream of doing that. I'm the one defending science here, because someone has to.

The thought processes that go into "the conclusions of science" are wide and varied, often having little to do with science itself. The conclusions of a particular instance of the scientific method, however, do always rest on unquestionable inputs. The literature of specific instances of the scientific method will bear me out on this.

Empirical confirmation can't even see the whole theory, only what manifests in terms of measurable quantities. This is why (what are later determined to be) mutually inconsistent theoretical models are sometimes indistinguishable in terms of their truth value if they imply the same measurable consequences. Which, if any, of them was more correct may become evident after further developments in theory.

A theory that makes false predictions is a false theory. This much is obviously correct and hardly an interesting observation. Though it does not mean there is information in empirical results corresponding to the truth content of a theory beyond the theory's consequences to measurement. The immediate utility of a theory being reducible to the correctness of its predictions does not imply that the test for immediate utility can see the overall utility of a theory including aspects of its eventual integration into the development of science.

Can you point me to this literature or give me some examples? All you are doing here is denying my claim, which is based on widely accepted ideas by historians and philosophers of science, so I would like to know your basis for doing so.

This misses the point. My claim is not that you confirm (in some strong sense) an entire theory by confirming a prediction. Rather, it is that scientific theories never confirm or falsify any particular hypothesis taken in isolation. This is the idea of the underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence. Here's the basic idea as stated by Pierre Duhem:

What this means is that in our choice of what hypotheses to accept (or reject) we are forced to bring in non-empirical considerations. Typically these considerations are theoretical virtues such as simplicity, richness and so on. But we can only judge whether a hypothesis has these virtues by understanding its place within the theory as a whole, and so when deciding whether to accept a specific scientific hypothesis we are really deciding whether to accept an entire scientific theory of which that hypothesis is only a part.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. I'm not trying to reduce a theory to its predictions (much the opposite).

All scientific literature involving the scientific method. Take your pick.

I am denying your claim has any validity in the actual practice of science, in addition to making a case in principle elsewhere. I have explained my basis for doing so by, among other things, pointing out that instances of non-foundational scientific procedure are completely absent from the literature.

Of course. We can't make a move of any kind without bringing in non-empirical considerations. But this is not what the scientific method as a formal procedure is about. It's only concern is comparing the measurable implications of a theoretical model to actual measurements in the real world.

Pierre Duhem: "The physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test..."

Nor do physicists even try to do this. Everyone knows that all hypotheses carry much legacy baggage that must be grandfathered in without complete rigor in order to get anything done.

It seems you are doing so anyway by ignoring the incomplete feedback from physical observation to theoretical motivation. The entire content of a theory (or group of theories, etc) is not on the line when it is tested, only its measurable consequences.

The makes no sense to me. Somehow the other of a theory's measurable claims are also exposed when any one of them is tested, as if there's a mutual dependence between them?

No, you pick one. Show me an example of a scientific theory that is justified by foundationalist principles.

What would a non-foundational scientific procedure look like? Do you even know what I'm talking about here?

Okay, so if in order to "make a move of any kind" it is necessary to bring in non-empirical considerations, how are the scientific conclusions we derive using those non-empirical considerations justified on foundationalist grounds?

So you agree with me...?

Once again, I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying.

Yes, here's my argument. Let's say you are testing physical theory A. You hypothesize that if A is correct, then j will be the result of your experiment. You do the experiment, but j doesn't happen. Now what? My claim is that there is no single claim in A that is falsified here. Rather, it is the conjunction of all the claims in A together that is shown to be false. But this doesn't show us which conjunct to remove. In order to make that decision we bring in other considerations which have to do with theory choice, such as simplicity, fecundity, conservation, etc. If we don't use these other considerations, we will be unable to draw any conclusions at all. However, in order to evaluate whether removing any particular conjunct (or adding a different one) maximizes these theoretical virtues, we have to evaluate the theory as a whole, as it is only then that we are able to determine the effect of removing or adding a new conjunct in the light of these theoretical virtues. Hence, when we test for A, we are testing all of A at once, not just the measurable parts of A.

That's not a justified belief, it's a mandatory one. It's an assumption we MUST make before doing anything else. Can you imagine what it would be like to live as if there was no external world? I can't.

Are you saying that I am not justified in believing that an eternal world exists?

This is a great example of why religious belief is hogwash compared to scientific belief. There are two things going on here:

1) We as a whole (humans) have confirmed the existence of Pluto. We as a whole have not confirmed any of your supernatural beliefs. As a matter of fact, we can't! That's where faith comes in. Do you honestly believe faith is the same in science as is it is religion, or are you just saying so for the sake of argument?
2) If I personally want to be skeptical about science and not trust the word of others, I can go out and test things for myself. When I feel it is not worth the time required, I decide to trust the word of others. Again, this can't be done with religion...we need the faith you rely on instead.

Tell me any way in which you can confirm your religious beliefs to any degree without dying first.

(I feel the need to point out something you already know: scientific "truth" is never 100% while religious truth is always purported to be 100%. Many theists take issue with that, and try to measure religion against science because of it. That's what it seems like you are doing here. Most atheists on the other hand take issue with the "purported" part of religious truth. If religion were anything more than purported, most atheists would still be theists.)

Nittery? It's pretty much the entire point of the argument of belief/faith in science vs belief/faith in religion!

Correct. You don't have any other options, so therefore it is a forced belief. You have no choice in the matter. Justification is reserved for when someone makes a good choice considering the information they have.

Do you consider "living as if an external world exists" a good choice?

EDIT: It's like asking if someone is justified in waking up after they have slept. Ridiculous and out of context, doncha think?

Sure you have other options. You could believe that you are a brain in a vat, or that you are in a dream world. Or some other such belief.

What? Now I wonder if you've been paying attention. Precise wording matters. Reread the posts leading up to this if necessary. Or see below because the essentials are reiterated.

Not scientific procedures in general, the scientific method specifically. Precise wording matters.

A non-foundational instance would not accept measurements as the "unquestionable inputs" previously described. The acceptance of measurement as an inherently justified basis of reason suffices to qualify the scientific method as foundationalist. (If you want to talk in more generally way, then mathematics would play a similar foundational role in the context of science. But, again, this is about something specific.)

Maybe they're not. This is only about the inherent foundationalism of the scientific method as such.

Conclusions involving the theory "as a whole" and similar do not follow from your premise, with which I agree, about not being able to test specific predictions in isolation. Since all you are doing is measuring, on what basis do you expect "all" of your theory, including those aspects which have no consequences to measurement, to be tested by the experiment?

The bolded is why the belief is justified. Necessity is one of the most (but not the most) important justifiers around.

You're equivocating the word "necessity." What you mean is necessity to make some decision (**** or get off the pot), regardless of which decision you choose. What I'm saying is that this is the ONLY decision one can choose to live by; it's a necessity to choose this one.

Re Jib: I never claimed a dichotomy. In fact, whether it is even a dichotomy or not doesn't matter. The fact remains that me must LIVE as though the world around us is real, whether we believe it or we don't.

Getting back on topic...

Did any theist ITT answer whether God expects us to believe in him or not? We got sidetracked into discussing justified beliefs, but we can link that back to the OP by asking if God believes atheists are justified in their belief. Do you (theists) think God believes that?

I'll rephrase to get some responses:

Theists: Does the Christian God believe non-Christians are justified in their belief?